NTRODUCTION: The critically ill patient often has multiple features that make it fertile ground for the development of arrhythmias of varying clinical importance. To evaluate the incidence of arrhythmias in patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) to discriminate between different types and evaluating the difference in mortality between patients with arrhythmia and those who did not. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is an analytical, observational and prospective study in which patients were included consecutively admitted to intensive care at a general acute hospital in the city of Buenos Aires during the period between October 2010 to March 2011. Mortality was assessed from the group of patients who present some type of arrhythmic event versus the group of patients who did not develop arrhythmias, using real mortality, the chi-square test and the standardized mortality ratio (SRM). RESULTS: We recruited a total of 109 patients with an age of 66.74 + 17.87 years, 38 female and 71 male with a value of 14.24 + 7.9 APACHEII presenting background and / or cardiovascular risk factors the 50.46% with an ICU stay 7.44 + 8.28 days. The condition that led to ICU admission was postoperative 31 cases, 30 cases cardiovascular, respiratory 23 cases, sepsis 9 cases, 8 cases, neurologic, gastrointestinal bleeding 4 cases, trauma in 1 case and others in 3 cases. The 85.32% of the patients had at least one arrhythmic event during your stay, arrhythmias were 583 of which 193 correspond to tachyarrhythmias, bradyarrhythmias 39, 76 with adequate heart rate and 275 non-sustained arrhythmias. As for the actual mortality from the group with arrhythmias that was 26.88% and 6.25% for the group without arrhythmic events with a predicted mortality by APACHE II score of 25% and 15% respectively with an SRM 1.08 and 0.42. Chi square 3.2 p = 0.0737. CONCLUSION: The incidence of arrhythmic events in critically ill patients is extremely high, being more frequent non-sustained arrhythmias, showing a tendency to statistically significant higher mortality in patients with arrhythmic events.
Publication: September - November 2011
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